iMuslims is a book written by Gary R Bunt and has been reviewed by Ziauddin Sardar

The internet has rewired Islam. The web is now at the core of all Muslim communities and performs a central role in Islamic expression. It is being used to reinterpret Islam; and Muslims themselves are being transformed.

The "i" in iMuslims, says Gary Bunt in this fascinating study, is not simply the internet. It also represents repacking of information on Islam, new pathways of interactivity and interconnection among Muslims, and an innovative online universe. A plethora of travellers on the religious path - scholars, students, activists, mystics – are developing new affinities that go far beyond traditional boundaries. Cyber Islam is challenging and mutating a conventional understanding of Muslim identity.

But not everything is new. This "Cyber Islamic Environment" has strong historic resonance. The new networks are not unlike traditional networks during the time of the Prophet Muhammad, when religious knowledge evolved as an open-source system. Just like Wikipedia, experts and ordinary people collaborated to develop a consensus on Islamic knowledge.

For example, the scholarship that developed around the collection of sayings and traditions of the Prophet Muhammad, hadith, was a collaborative effort. Scholars travelled far and wide, making connections with networks around centres of knowledge, both to collect and transmit versions of hadith. The criteria for evaluating hadith were also a product of collaborative efforts. This "open-source Islamic scholarship", Bunt writes, "was subjected to limitations and restrictions over time". It has now been rediscovered by an internet-savvy generation...

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